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Day: May 20, 2022

How An IIT-certified Supply Chain Management Course can jumpstart your career

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

How An IIT-certified Supply Chain Management Course can jumpstart your career

It’s the dream of millions of Indians to study at IIT and experience its legacy of excellence. Interestingly, today, one need not be an engineering graduate to do that. Innovation and technology have revolutionized almost every discipline, and one that is highly impacted is Supply Chain Management (SCM). By pursuing a cutting-edge online supply chain certification course offered by IIT Roorkee, ambitious professionals can build in-demand industry skills and fast-track their career growth to the next level. 

Evolution of the supply chain

The cloud has completely transformed the modern supply chain. The accelerated growth of eCommerce, higher consumer expectations, shift to data-driven decision-making, and challenges in procuring raw materials have collectively influenced how SCM is practiced. These shifts have led to a disproportionate jump in the number of SCM jobs available across sectors and to an expansion of roles across the industry. 

Today one can choose from an array of Supply Chain Management Careers. One can become a Supply Planning Analyst, Data Scientist, Demand Planner, Procurement Specialist, Data Analyst, Supply And Operations Planner,  Quality Assurance Manager, and Logistics Manager. 

Aspiring supply chain management professionals need to invest in training that empowers them to succeed in their chosen career path. 

Build the skills of the future 

A modern SCM course, backed by an IIT faculty, curriculum, and certification, equips professionals to build skills. They can also get a taste of hands-on learning as they work on real-world SCM projects. For example, understanding how to leverage analytics through technologies such as Python gives SCM professionals the tools to improve efficiency, apply real-time insights to their outcomes, and innovate the supply chain in line with their business goals. Data-centric professionals are more likely to make superior decisions and directly impact their work and the profitability of the business. 

An industry-focused program 

An industry-focused curriculum helps you get exposure to core SCM concepts. It also enables hands-on learning of SCM processes, tools, and techniques. You will get exposure to core subjects such as supply chain performance, drivers and metrics, how to design the supply chain, planning demand and supply, improving supply chain profitability, and driving sales and operations.

Some emerging subjects, such as handling uncertainties as well as leveraging technology to predict demand, are growing focus areas in the curriculum and the industry. Another important aspect is the entire placement process, which includes services such as resume building, job interview prep, and placement opportunities. This is especially important as you take the plunge into a whole new industry.  

The IIT Edge  

By opting for a superior 6-month SCM course, professionals can experience live sessions by IIT faculty, one of the best faculties in the world, and seasoned industry experts from the SCM field. You also get a unique opportunity to participate in a campus immersion module hosted at an IIT campus. Here you get to engage with peers and faculty and work on a capstone project under the guidance of professional mentors. At the end of the program, you get a certificate from the prestigious IIT. 

Work and learn! 

Today, you can pursue an online Supply Chain Certification Course, which allows you to work and learn simultaneously. You can access on-demand content via your smartphone or smart device from anywhere and learn as per your schedule. The byte-sized mix of video content, blogs, assignments, live sessions, and assessments make learning an engaging, interactive experience.

Another benefit of a modern SCM course is mentorship. A mentor, backed with years of hands-on  SCM experience and industry-savviness, doubles up as a motivational guide and thought partner throughout the program. Your mentor also has the potential to value-add to your network throughout your professional career. 

Grow your network

Professional success is a measure of your skills and talent and your ability to nurture successful relationships in the industry. As they say, your network is your net worth! An IIT-certified SCM course gives you access to seasoned faculty and industry leaders from IIT’s network. You also have the opportunity to engage with peers looking to pursue growth in the field of your interest. In the future, they will become part of your professional network, not to mention the wide spectrum of IIT alumni who are already well-placed in the industry.   

Fuel career growth

Today, the digital supply chain model, which leverages AI, delivery automation, and blockchain, is a dynamic field. An IIT-backed SCM course equips you with the tools, experience, and network to excel and make your mark in this field.

To know more about online programs that can fuel your career growth, connect with us through chat support or drive down to our training centers in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Delhi. 

Advanced Modelling and Strategies in Derivatives Markets

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

Advanced Modelling and Strategies in Derivatives Markets

A derivative is an instrument that derives its value from another underlying asset or a group of assets. Derivatives can be either exchange-traded or an OTC product. Derivatives include futures, options, forwards, swaps, and credit default swaps. Derivative pricing derives its values from the underlying asset. Underlying assets could be stocks, bonds, indices, exchange rates, commodities, and interest rates, to name a few.

Derivatives are commonly used to speculate or as a hedging instrument to diversify portfolio risk. Learning about derivatives is an integral part of investment banking. Our Investment banking course is specially designed to understand derivatives markets, learn about investment banking, and hone your investment banking skills. 

Pricing Derivatives

  • As explained before, derivatives values are derived from the financial security or instrument to which they are linked. 
  • The pricing depends on the type of the derivative contract. There are also many different permutations and combinations of each derivative contract. Long and short calls, put strategies, or even a combination of different types of options, etc. are some examples. 
  • Futures are standardized contracts created by exchanges and include a certain quantity and quality of the underlying commodity. Futures values are based on the spot price along with the basis amount. Basis amount refers to the difference between the spot prices of the future contact and the future price. This also affects the values used in hedging. Future traders use this to determine the profitability between cash or actual delivery of the product. 
  • Option prices depend on the underlying instrument price, time to expiration of the option, the volatility of the option, interest rate, and the strike or the exercise price of the option. Options can be both in-the-money or out-of-the-money depending on time to expiration. Models like the Black and Scholes model, Binomial tree and trinomial tree, etc., are commonly used to determine option pricing. 
  • In swaps, there are two streams of fixed and variable cash flows over the maturity of the swap contract. The pricing is determined by equating the present value of the two streams. Interest rate, commodity, and currency swaps are the most common derivative instruments. 
  • Forwards are non-standardized, OTC contracts used for currencies arranged between two counterparties (one being the bank) with flexible terms. Forward pricing depends on the relative interest differential between the two currencies.

 Our programs are specially designed to enable you to price derivatives through our derivatives course. Learn investment banking and cultivate your investment banking skills today. Visit: https://imarticus.org/

Risk Management Using Derivative Strategies

Derivatives, as mentioned previously, are used for both speculations and hedging or risk management to protect your portfolio of underlying assets.

 Hedging or protecting against risk using derivatives is commonly used so that if the prices of your underlying portfolio assets depreciate, your derivative position appreciates to offset the portfolio loss. Hedging helps eliminate uncertainty and avoid losses that occur due to price volatility.

  • A put option is an example of an instrument used to hedge a stock portfolio. A protective put strategy is owning a stock portfolio and buying a put option to protect stock price losses below the strike price. 
  • Forward and swap contracts in currencies are used to protect against the effect that exchange appreciation or depreciation has on the portfolio. The currency conversion is fixed at the forward rate, and you are protected against both appreciation and depreciation of the currency. You can convert your foreign exchange earnings at the forward strike rate. Currency swaps can also be used for similar purposes. 
  • In low-interest rate environments, interest rate swaps from fixed to floating rates can be used to minimize the interest outgo, especially on medium-term foreign exchange loans. This enables your company to benefit in a low market interest rate environment to reduce your interest liability.

Risks of Trading in Derivatives

Derivatives are risky instruments when traded uncovered (i.e., without ownership of the underlying instrument). This is because they have gearing or leverage. If the underlying asset price increases 10%, the price of the derivative linked to that asset is likely to move 50%. As this movement is on both the upside and the downside, the risk in a derivative increases exponentially.

Also, for investing a small sum (a fraction of the underlying asset’s value) in the form of option premium, or initial margin on a futures contract, you get exposure to a potentially large payoff. There is the counterparty risk of default in derivative contracts like futures or swaps. Interest rate risk is yet another factor. Derivative contracts are also sensitive to supply and demand pressures.  

Given the complexity of derivatives, it is essential to get a thorough understanding of the derivatives market. If you are desirous of becoming an investment banker, you have to learn investment banking and cultivate investment banking skills.

Contact us through chat support, or drive to our training centers in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Gurgaon. 

From BSE to NSE: Understanding the concept of Derivates Market in 2022

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

From BSE to NSE: Understanding the concept of Derivates Market in 2022

Introduction

Do you have a genuine knack for the financial market? Is your interest in the concepts of derivatives growing day by day? If your answer is yes to both these questions then a career in investment banking might be just the right fit for you. Before you jump into your search for the best investment banking courses on the internet, let us briefly revisit the basic concepts of the derivatives market, its benefits, and uses, and how you as an aspiring investment banker can play an active role in this money market.

Derivatives Market Explained

A derivative is a type of financial contract between two individuals/parties or more. The underlying basis of this contract is a mutually agreed-upon financial or commodity asset (for example security) or a group of assets (referred to as an index). The most commonly used financial instruments used to forge a derivative contract are commodities, currencies, bonds, market indexes, interest rates, and stocks.

In a derivatives market, you are likely to come across these three kinds of participants:

  1.     Hedgers

Hedgers are traders who engage in self-protectionism from the risk that arises out of price movements. They will cover or hedge their position by getting into a trade policy of the opposite nature and attempt to pass on the risk to those who are comfortable bearing it. In this way, they protect themselves from the risk or uncertainty associated with a particular price.

  1.     Speculators

Speculators have an appetite for high risk and can predict the future price movement to make gains quickly and largely. Speculators try to garner the maximum output out of price volatility. They absorb excess risk and provide liquidity in the market where other investors would not like to get involved.

  1.     Arbitrageurs

Arbitrage involves low-risk trading and the arbitrageurs buy securities in one market and parallel sell in the other. This happens when the same kind of securities are being sold in two different types of markets simultaneously at different prices.

Types of Derivatives

To understand the derivatives market better, you also need to have an idea of the four sub-types:

  1.     Forward Contracts

Customized agreement between two parties wherein they mutually agree to trade on a particular asset or commodity at an agreed-upon price and a fixed date in the future. They are under a contract basis to bear the respective loss or profit should things go/not go in their favor. These contracts are traded privately over the counter.

  1.     Future Contracts

The standardized alternative of the forward contract type. Two parties agree to trade on a particular contract at a specified date and time and a fixed price. Unlike forwarding contracts, they can be traded on the exchange.

 

  1.     Options Contact

A mutual agreement between the seller and the buyer wherein the buyer is given the right to either buy or sell a particular commodity or asset at a later date in the future at a fixed price. However, the buyer is not obliged to do so.  

  1.     Swap

Under this type of derivative contract, two individuals or parties exchange the liabilities or cash flows from two financial instruments separate from each other. The swaps are based on a notional principal amount such as a bond or loan.

Benefits of Derivatives

If you are wondering why the derivatives market is so lucrative to traders and investors, here are some of the benefits of its uses:

 

  • Hedging Risk Exposure

 

A derivatives financial contract helps to hedge or bypass a possible risk underlying an asset

 

  • Underlying Asset Price Determination

 

Helps to determine or predict the price of an underlying asset

 

  • Access to Unavailable Assets

 

Derivatives can aid you to get quick access to assets that are otherwise not available

  •  Market Efficiency

Derivatives contracts help to duplicate the asset payoff. Thus, they increase the efficiency of the financial market.

Role of Investment Banker in Derivatives Market

When it comes to the derivatives market, investment banks have a huge role to play as their interests are involved in this market from across the world. Needless to say, this is where the part of an investment banker gains prominence:


  1. Advice to Clients

When it comes to global investment banking, investment bankers offer advice to their clients to sometimes restructure finance to navigate away from possible bankruptcy, they can advise about mergers and acquisitions. To do these things, investment banks obtain access to books that help them analyze the risks involved and where they should hedge.


  1. Market Making

Investment bankers sometimes liquidate their positions before maturity and act as market makers. The market-making ends up utilizing a lot of capital from the trading desk of the bank involved and offers an exit route to the investors.


  1. Structured Products Creation

When the needs of the client cannot be solved with futures and swaps, the global investment banking firm will call in ‘quants. These are highly specialized professionals to analyze risks and club the products together to generate a new financial product which is known as a structured product.


  1. Marketing Structured Products

Once the quants have created the new structured products, the investment bankers will now need to find parties who are willing to buy them. This is a very difficult task that requires a lot of skill as the newly created products are perceived to be very risky in the financial market.


  1. Act as Middlemen

When investment bankers are unable to find counterparties to sell their newly created products to, they hire risk analysts to evaluate the risk involved if they are to trade it on their books.

Skills Required by an Investment Banker

If you feel intrigued about the derivatives market after going through this article and wish to enroll in a course, you should know what basic investment banking skills to become successful after training:

  •         Strong intellect
  •         Self-discipline and diligence
  •         Open-mindedness
  •          An academic inclination for subjects like linguistics, sociology, and anthropology
  •         Communication skills

Conclusion

If you want to buy and sell derivatives or just want to help organizations or parties to buy or sell their product you should enroll certified investment banking operations professional course from any reputed institution which will train you intensively to become an expert investment banker in the future.

The Past, Present And Future Of Hadoop

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

The Past, Present And Future Of Hadoop

Technologies that have become successful over a period of time go through innumerable cycles of discovery, invention, adoption, socialization, and constant improvement. Hadoop is no different from other technologies and it has followed the same path. 

Hadoop is an open-source software framework, which is mainly utilized for running applications and storing data on clusters of commodity hardware. With this framework, you will get huge storage for almost all kinds of data. Also, it provides massive processing power and the capacity of handling limitless simultaneous tasks or jobs. 

History of Hadoop

If you are interested and want to learn data science, then you have to know about the basics of Hadoop. We all know that when searched with a keyword, search engines provide us with relevant information. With the immense growth of the web, millions of pages were added every day. There was no other option than automating the process for displaying search results. 

This is where web crawlers were created. Many search-engine startups also emanated. One such project was called Nutch, which was an open-source web search engine. The idea of the project was to return search results quickly by distributing calculations and data across different systems so that multiple tasks could be completed simultaneously. 

At this same time, Google was also working on a similar kind of concept of processing and storing data in a distributed and automated manner so that proper search results can be returned faster. 

Nutch was the brainchild of Mike Cafarella and Doug Cutting. And, Cutting later joined Yahoo with his Nutch project. However, the Nutch project got divided. The distributed processing and computing part became Hadoop and the web crawler part remained Nutch. Yahoo then released Hadoop as an open-source project in 2008. 

Hadoop’s ecosystem of technologies and framework is maintained and managed by a non-profit Apache Software Foundation (ASF). This is a global community comprising software contributors and developers.

Hadoop is More of a Framework Than a Solution

It is needless to say that Hadoop’s technology brought a revolution in the world of data storage. Previously, it was expensive as well as difficult to store huge volumes of structured data. But, Hadoop took good care of this burden. Organizations and businesses found a cost-effective way of storing data with Hadoop. 

Hadoop clusters have been set up by many businesses so that they get better business insights or new information from the data. However, there is a slight hitch in this sector. Many businesses have tried to execute an analytics-based or business intelligence idea and they have been disappointed. 

For interactive queries, Hadoop proved to be very slow and this is a disappointment for many businesses. It is now understood that Hadoop is a framework and not a big data solution. For many businesses, Hadoop is too complicated. Basically, to handle Hadoop, a dedicated team is needed with programming knowledge and a level of configuration. 

Cloud-driven Evolution

The world of data warehousing is evolving fast and this means that Hadoop is evolving too. When Hadoop was created, then the public cloud did not exist. In fact, the IT landscape in which Hadoop had gained immense popularity has changed drastically over the years. Now, it is difficult to compare the previous landscape with the current IT landscape. 

Obviously, the way in which Hadoop was used has also changed. If you check instances like Azure’s HDInsight, AWS Elastic Map Reduce, and Google Cloud Platform’s DataProc, you will understand that the majority of public cloud infrastructure providers now integrate and actively maintain a managed Hadoop platform.  

Nowadays, the cloud-based Hadoop platform is commonly used for machine learning, batch processing, and ETL jobs. When a business moves to the cloud, it means that you can use Hadoop immediately and on demand. This happens because the total setup is complicated but it is already taken care of. 

There is no doubt that Hadoop has gained with its move to the cloud. But at the same time, Hadoop is not the only option now for secure, cheap, and robust data storage. Competition has increased drastically in the data-storage industry. There is no second thought that Hadoop is not the epicentre of the data universe. 

Future of Hadoop

It is pretty difficult to say that Hadoop is losing its place in the data market. This is because the framework comes with certain benefits, which are difficult to ignore. Hadoop is an excellent on-premise solution and the demand for such solutions is really high. Moreover, this demand will not go down soon in the coming years. 

Conclusion

Honing your skills in Hadoop or data science will help in making a great career. For a successful data scientist career, it is recommended to take up a course from a well-reputed institute like Imarticus Learning. With such a certification, more job opportunities will open up in the data science industry. 

6 fundamental rules to discover the leader in you

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

6 fundamental rules to discover the leader in you

Are leaders born or made?

“The leader is one who, out of the clutter, brings simplicity. Out of discord, harmony, and out of difficulty, opportunity.” – Albert Einstein. Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi led their nation’s independence movements. Elon Musk leads multiple teams in building a future that includes self-driving electric cars, reusable rockets, and human habitat on Mars! History is replete with people who came out of nowhere and nurtured traits over time to inspire and influence people into action on a common cause. They made great leaders!

leadership training programsHave you discovered the leader in you? If not, get ready to bite the six fundamental rules from our courses to develop leadership skills.

Why – review the state of the industry?

Since the 18th century, the state of the industry has evolved gradually from:

  • Mechanization
  • Mass production
  • Computerization
  • The internet of things and artificial intelligence

Comparatively, the 21st-century changes have been force multipliers of digital business, substantiated by Gartner in its latest technology trends of 2022.

How – has this affected the organizations?

Until the 20th century, conventional leadership was hierarchical, formal, planned strategies, motivated people to execute, intervened to alter direction, exercised control, and ensured conformance to rules.

Unlike before, the rapid and disruptive 21st century has made organization structures flatter, relatively informal, adaptive to experimentation, and building resilience to overcome sudden changes. The pandemic severely tested organizations. The fittest survived!

The rules of leadership have dramatically changed in the 21st century. To help you discover the leader in you, we bring you six fundamental rules included in our corporate leadership training programs. They are:

I) Empathy – Values Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness

HBR reported a whopping 658% increase since 2018 in chief executives of over 500 organizations talking about equity, fairness, and inclusion in their workplace. Unlike autocratic styles of leaders who are hard focused purely on the business performance metrics, the overwhelming rule number one to discover the leader in you is empathy. It requires one to have a genuine concern for people’s problems and the intent to resolve them. It is a factor of emotional intelligence, also called the “we” leader’s mindset of building bridges within and across teams. Understand first, then be understood, since together is always better.

II) Curiosity – ‘Sharpen the saw’, growth mindset

Are you an ever-curious person who instinctively:

  • thinks about challenges as opportunities to find new solutions rather than a hurdle? 
  • feels excited to invest in learning and upskilling continually by enrolling himself and team members in corporate leadership development programs across dynamic functions such as marketing, finance, technology, and analytics?

Curiosity thus becomes an essential rule for modern-day leaders.

III) Flexibility – On work schedules, locations, and career gaps

Forbes reported that a recent study highlighted that 94% of employees wished for flexibility to work from anywhere, and 96% would look for it in any new job. Hanging on to traditional rigidity can be disastrous for employee retention in an era of significant attrition. Think win-win.

Flexibility towards employees is a must-have rule for the leader in you. 

IV) Adaptability – To rapid changes happening around us

Automation disrupted traditional job roles. The pandemic further disrupted industries. Rapid changes are now constant. We have always known Darwin’s theory of evolution professed adaptation to the environment and survival of the fittest organisms. The rule of adaptability is now equally applicable to leaders of the 21st century. Keeping the end goal in mind makes it easier to adapt.

V) Resilience – Being at it through thick and thin

To cope with frequent changes can be challenging since we naturally aspire for stability and security. The rules of resilience – being patient and persistent, managing risk, and not giving up are insights to look for to find the leader in you. 

VI) Digitalisation – of workplace and skills

Automation and technology have permeated all business functions. The digitalization of the workplace and skills is an essential way of life across supply chain transactions, communication, collaboration, and competitiveness. Digitalization is a new-age rule for the leader in you. 

Why choose us?

leadership training programsAt Imarticus Learning, we know that 84% of organizations will fail due to a lack of the right skills. We ensure that our learning solutions are carefully crafted for enterprises, teams, and leaders to be future-ready.

We specialize in banking and finance, technology, analytics, and life skills with consistently high ratings (4.5 to 4.8 out of 5) across all domains.

Conclusion

The six fundamental skills to discover the leader in you is an opportunity calling you to embrace and be ready to be a leader of choice in the 21st century.